The video game publisher Electronic Arts announced on Monday that it agreed to be taken private in a deal valued at roughly $55 billion by a group of investors that includes a firm managed by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The deal would pay stockholders $210 per share in cash, a 25 percent premium to the company’s share price before news of the deal leaked.
If completed, it would be the largest buyout of a publicly traded company to date, not adjusting for inflation. The investors would partly finance the deal with a $20 billion loan from JPMorgan Chase.
The deal is led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which already owns about 10 percent of Electronic Arts, the private equity firm Silver Lake and Mr. Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
The move is the latest effort by the Saudi fund to advance into gaming as it looks to diversify its investments away from oil. In 2021, the fund created the Savvy Games Group to spearhead a planned $38 billion investment in the industry. Riyadh hosted the Esports World Cup this summer, a video game tournament with $70 million in prize money.
The fund’s push into gaming is part of a broader bet by the kingdom on sports, which includes backing LIV Golf, a rival to the PGA Tour, a stake in the Professional Fighters League and major investments in soccer at home and abroad. For its part, Electronic Arts is a sports-gaming juggernaut, with popular franchises like FIFA for soccer and Madden for football.
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